“There was a time when we thought as you did,” Mrs. Goldschmidt says. “Did what you and Lars are brave enough to do at school.” She smiled her smile, slightly crooked, a small scar at one corner, one of his mother’s few mysteries, according to Lars. “But we each kept getting into trouble, kept getting fired, and having to find new jobs. We had to decide. Did we want to withdraw from the world entirely? Or compartmentalize? At the time we found Him Lars was ten years old. We were conflicted. How much did we want Lars to be in that world? How far should we retreat? We took counsel from Reverend Michael, who as you know believes that our kind should remain inconspicuous. That it is not compromising our faith to camouflage ourselves against the persecution that is coming. He showed us the answer in the Psalms: If a foe were rising against me, I could hide. We decided to live what would appear like a normal life to other people.”
But their idea of a normal life was patently absurd. Lars had no chance of fitting in, not in Anna’s insular suburb. As it turned out, Sunnyvale High was Lars’s third high school in two years. That he would have to endure verbal or emotional abuse because of his faith was one thing. They would have suffered with him, but they would not have moved him. It is written, after all, that the faithful will be so persecuted. The beginning of the trials. But even they couldn’t ignore the brutality of his tormentors, or fail to understand that something other than his faith was being punished. The black eyes. The bruises. His nose broken, twice. His locker repeatedly broken into, his books even shat upon. Eventually, the dislocated shoulder and fractured arm. So they moved again. And then again. And then finally to Anna’s neighborhood.
“Why do your parents work in the real world?” Anna had asked Lars. “If money matters so little, why bother? Why not do odd jobs, forge independent lives like others in the church?”
He’d shrugged. “They wouldn’t know what else to do. They’re competent, intelligent. They found the Way late in life. They were entrenched. It was easy to keep the external structure of their lives intact.”
“But knowing what’s ahead, shouldn’t they prepare?” Anna had persisted. “It’s going to take more than spiritual resolve to make it through the trials that lie ahead.”
“That’s not their way even if it is ours,” says Lars, who doesn’t shy away from proclaiming his faith. Anna has been drawn into his acts of God, as he calls them. Even after twice being called into the principal’s office, they distribute flyers in the halls at school, corner people in the cafeteria, try to get them to understand what is at stake. For he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
They also know they must prepare for what is to come in practical ways. The Goldschmidts dimly comprehend this. Anna and Lars, however, know they must take care of their worldly needs as the time approaches. Anna has begun running ten miles a day, doing push-ups, sit-ups, and kickboxing. They will have to endure three and a half years of violence before Jesus descends again. It is necessary to plan, to be ready, to hone their survival abilities.
Sitting in the Goldschmidts’ living room, Anna knows Lars is waiting for a chance to slip away, but his parents seem to be enjoying their company.
“Let us pray, together,” Lars’s mother says, and reaches out to hold Anna’s hand. Anna reluctantly takes Lars’s. As devoted as she is to him, touching him makes her uncomfortable, and yet he is always patting her arm or stroking her shoulder. It doesn’t seem natural, but like something he thinks is expected of him. Everyone bows their heads except Anna. She still isn’t used to this. Whatever has happened to her isn’t compatible with quiet meditation. On the contrary, she is most content when hearing about the Tribulation. The earthquakes—Anna’s father jokes that he is happy about that, at least—the floods and the plagues and the wars. About how the Antichrist will be revealed. The man so evil, so corrupt, so malevolent that he is worthy of leading the armies of the wicked against the virtuous. All this is terribly exciting.
“Amen,” says Lars’s father and smiles at Anna. She squirms a little, feels like a fraud. If she is being schooled by Lars in the ways of the spiritual world, she is trying to help him cope with the reality of the worldly one that they must live in for now. And that means dealing with Lars’s parents in ways that aren’t strictly on the up and up.
Anna appreciates that they are not quite of this earth. But as parents, they should be more practical. Until recently, rarely was there enough food in the house. Toilet paper and soap were scarce. Lars routinely found his parents’ paychecks lying loose around the house, uncashed.
Anna encouraged Lars to appropriate a checkbook he found in a drawer, and to call the bank and request a new ATM card in his father’s name. His deep voice convincingly mature. Making sure he got to the mail before his parents did, Lars then gathered up the uncashed paychecks from around the house, forged signatures, and deposited them safely.
With Anna’s help, Lars takes over the grocery shopping. Anna borrows her mother’s car and drives him to the Safeway on Matilda Street, they bring back canned goods, fresh milk and cheese and bread, vegetables. She helps him prepare meals for his family before slipping next door to have her own dinner with hers. Now Lars can withdraw cash whenever his family needs it, and he and Anna will have enough left over for their own needs. For they are formulating plans. Like the other members of the congregation of Reverend Michael’s church, they are stockpiling goods, saving money, getting ready—all the things that Lars’s parents are too unworldly to do by themselves. Anna consoles herself with this thought when she feels a guilty twinge about what she and Lars are up to.
One day she enters the living room to find her mother playing the piano. Anna walks over and stands behind her. There is no music on the stand. Her mother is playing the heartbreaking melody from memory.
“What is this?” Anna asks.
“Szymanowski. Étude, op. 4, no. 3.”
“It’s lovely,” Anna says.
Suddenly her mother turns around and puts her arms around Anna’s waist, buries her head on Anna’s chest. “Oh, Annie,” she says. “What did we do wrong? First your . . . blues, and now this.”
Anna places one hand on the top of her mother’s head, the other on her cheek. Mother and child. This is the hardest part.
“Tell me everything will be all right,” her mother says. Anna does what Reverend Michael advises in such cases. She lies.
“Yes,” she says. “Everything will be all right.” Her mother looks at her, then turns back to the keyboard without speaking.
16
FRED WILSON GIVES A TALK at Reverend Michael’s church. Not the burly, red-faced man you’d expect of a Midwest dairy farmer. Tall, well-made, with a stiff-legged walk due to early arthritis in his knees. Perhaps the same age as Anna’s parents. Something quick in his glance makes Anna feel as though he sees her despite the crowd. He apologizes for needing to sit down during his talk. “Most of the hard work falls on others’ shoulders these days,” he says in the flat tones of his native Valentine, Nebraska, where he works the cattle ranch passed to him by his great-grandfather. “I’m now devoting all of my resources to the Red Heifer project,” he says.
A pioneer in cattle embryo transplants, Fred Wilson explains how he is breeding a pure Red Heifer. “A cause that is worthy of our financial and spiritual support,” Reverend Michael had said when introducing him to a full house. “You are our most direct link to Christ, Brother Fred.”
At the words Red Heifer Anna sits up. Although she has asked, no one has yet explained the meaning of her dreams. She has been told to be patient. Lars, sitting next to Anna, sees her excitement and smiles, pats her knee.
Despite Wilson’s manner, he is not shy. But he is profoundly dull. He speaks of complex progesterone compounds, of suppressing the pituitary release of FSH, and inducing bovine estrus. His voice a monotone. His eyes downcast. Dressed in a suit that makes him look
as though he’s never seen a farmyard. The furthest from a humble man of the earth Anna can imagine.
When he finishes his technical talk, silence. Then a scattering of polite applause. Reverend Michael lifts his hands to command silence.
“I know the scientific talk is a little difficult to understand. But this man is pursuing a terrible and wonderful vision,” he says, and gestures back to Fred Wilson. Anna sits up straighter.
“We’ve had our share of failures, true, but we are close now,” Wilson says. “So close.” He looks at Lars and Anna seated in the front row, then focuses on Anna, and grasping the edge of his folding chair, stands up. Emotion stirs for the first time in his face. “We are living on the precipice of human history,” he says. “Prophecies made two thousand years ago by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and John will be fulfilled in our lifetime.” Anna shivers with anticipation.
Fred Wilson coughs into his sleeve. Reverend Michael hands him a glass of water, which he drinks. When Wilson starts speaking again, his voice is stronger, even passionate.
“Certain ignorant people believe they can predict the date of the Rapture, or the year that the Tribulation will begin,” he says. “Read your Bible. This is clearly untrue.” A ripple goes through the room, this has always been a point of contention among the congregation, some believing in approaching dates, others arguing the End Days have already begun, the Antichrist already present and fully engaged in his evil work.
Fred Wilson stops to drink more water. “Three great events must take place before the Messiah can return,” he says, his voice full of power. No one is bored now. “First, the nation of Israel must be restored. Second, Jerusalem must be a Jewish city. And, finally, the Temple must be rebuilt.” Anna nods. She sees where he is going. “We have witnessed the first two events. Now we must join together to bring about the completion of the third.” His last words thunder into the silent room.
“Tell us what you have accomplished,” says Reverend Michael.
“We are working with our Jewish brethren at the Third Temple Commission, in Jerusalem,” Fred Wilson says. “Our spirits have merged. We are resolute. His will be done.”
“And what is the Third Temple Commission?” prompts Reverend Michael.
“The Jewish organization committed to rebuilding the Temple on the sacred Temple Mount,” says Wilson. “I’m breeding Red Heifers to be used in the Jewish sacrifice for the ritual cleansing. Such a cleansing is required before anyone of that faith can set foot on the Temple Mount.”
A Red Heifer. Anna shivers. She feels she must ask, and raises her hand. Fred Wilson acknowledges her.
“What is this Red Heifer, exactly?” Anna asks.
“Good question,” Fred Wilson says. “Many people are unaware of this particular aspect of the prophecies.” He is now addressing Anna directly. “A Red Heifer is a red cow, unsullied by work, that must be burned as sacrifice to purify anyone who steps foot on hallowed ground like the Temple Mount.”
“But aren’t there a lot of red cows to choose from?” Anna persists. “Why do you need to breed them specially?” She is finding it hard to breathe. Her visions.
“Because pure red heifers do not exist,” says Fred Wilson. “Some imperfection always manifests itself.”
Anna thinks of her red cow, the one of her dreams. It is perfect.
“And that would ruin the sacrifice,” Fred Wilson explains. “The Third Temple Commission would not sanction it. I’m on my seventh generation of breeding, and we are getting close. I think that with my next gestation I will have achieved our goal of a pure Red Heifer. I plan to begin sending the embryos to Israel to be implanted in the wombs of Israeli cows within the next nine months. The first implantation will be at the New Year. The first birth nine months after. And only when we have purified our warriors with the sacrifice of a pure Red Heifer can we even contemplate entering the sacred space of the Temple Mount.”
“What’s in it for the Jewish people? Why are they helping us?” asks another member of the congregation.
“We’re helping them just as they are helping us. They get the Red Heifers they need for the cleansing sacrifice. Thus cleansed, they can take back the Temple Mount from the Muslims and build the Third Temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands. Then, according to the Jews’ own beliefs, their Messiah will come.”
Someone in the congregation makes a derisive hoot.
“We of course know this to be untrue,” Fred Wilson says, holding up a hand. Murmurs of agreement from the audience. “We know this event will trigger the beginning of the Tribulation. Which is, of course, our goal, and our end of the arrangement.”
The End Days are that close! Anna feels as though she is electric, that anything she touches will light up.
“Why don’t they just go to the Temple Mount now and begin building?” asks a young man. “I mean, if that will bring their Messiah.”
“Two reasons. As I’ve already explained, the Temple Mount is sacred,” Fred Wilson says impatiently. “As Jews they cannot even step foot on that hallowed ground until they have been purified with the sacrifice of the Red Heifer.”
He seems to have finished, so someone prompts him. “And the second reason?”
“The Temple Mount is sacred to Muslims as well, their third holiest site,” he says. “They call it the Noble Sanctuary. It’s where they believe their prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. They happen to control it now. The Jews will not be able to take the Temple Mount easily. Even after they are purified.”
“You’re talking about war,” Lars says.
Fred Wilson is silent for a moment. Then he nods. “Yes,” he says. “It will be difficult. The Third Temple Commission faces opposition from the Israeli secular government as well as the Muslims. The Red Heifer is such an incendiary thing even among the Jewish people that the Israeli Army was called out more than fifteen years ago when the Commission claimed to have found one. They shot it immediately. Destroyed every molecule of it.”
Anna can hardly breathe. This is what her visions portend. Anna tunes out the rest of Fred Wilson’s talk. At the reception, she asks to be introduced to him. He is clearly interested. “Reverend Michael mentioned you,” he says, holding on to her hand for too long. “He says you are special.” When Anna glances at him askance, he adds, “He says you have visions.”
“I dream about the Red Heifer,” Anna says.
Fred Wilson looks Anna over carefully. “We should stay in touch,” he tells her. “I send out bulletins about our progress to a select group of people. I’d like you to be one of them. You can get my email address from Reverend Michael.”
True believers have Fred Wilson. And now, thinks Anna, they have me. As she considers this her fate, she forgets about being rude. She quizzes Fred Wilson, pestering him with questions until he’s led away by the Reverend Michael. She goes home to bed and contemplates what she’s learned.
Chok. A divine commandment from God. A decree that defies understanding. It has no known origin, and it possesses no logic. But it must be obeyed. Its wisdom cannot be questioned, its mystery cannot be solved. If you walk in my decrees and observe my commandments and do them.
Anna is accustomed to choks because of her mother: Do this. Why? Because I said so.
So when Fred Wilson explained about the chok of the Red Heifer, Anna was receptive. Like all choks, it was beautiful because of the lack of logic.
It’s a recipe for making yourself worthy of God, of entering a sacred space. A filthy recipe: You cover yourself with filth. Burn a Red Heifer. Take its ashes and mix with water. Rub into your skin. Only then, your arms and legs and face soiled with dead cow, will you be purified and worthy of entering the Temple. Worthy of Him.
To qualify for the sacrifice, the heifer must be wholly red. No impure tufts of white or black. She can’t be disfigured in any way. The heifer must never have been harnessed for practical
purposes. She must never have been impregnated. No milking. No pulling of wagons or machinery. To ensure she has never been yoked, the hair on her neck, back, and stomach must be perfectly straight. And, naturally, she must be born in Israel.
A true Red Heifer is very rare, Fred Wilson had told Anna. There have been only nine since Moses’s day, and none since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. So this ritual has not been performed for more than two thousand years. And until it is performed, He cannot come again. “It has been so prophesied,” Fred Wilson said.
Anna longs to perform this chok. She longs to see the Red Heifer, to slather herself with sodden ash. To be ready. For I am passionately in love with death. The words that won’t leave her.
17
ANNA’S SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY. MAY 30. Her parents still hope at this point, are still trying to lure Anna back. She comes home from school to find both her parents there despite the fact that it is a workday. They lead her to her room and open the door with great fanfare. In the corner is a white vanity table. On top of the vanity, a movie star mirror surrounded by bright lights. And piles of the most beautiful stuffs imaginable. Stacks of small round pots holding green and blue and purple powders, tubes of magenta and russet and bronze. Bottles of creamy lotions. Long-handled soft brushes to gently apply the ungodly materials. Tears spring into Anna’s eyes. And then she looks at her parents and shakes her head. No. No. And sees the tears in theirs. Even her father. They are her trial, Anna’s parents. Both God and Satan use them, the one to test so as to purify, the other to lead her into temptation. No! she nearly cries. But she stays quiet, hugs her mother and father and leaves the room. No one touches the gifts. They remain there, arranged so prettily that Anna knows her mother spent hours placing them just so, to best advantage, to surprise her. Gradually dust covers them. They are Anna’s penance. They remind her that she could fall at any moment.
Coming of Age at the End of Days Page 6